I think we talked about this before, but the debate over the Bale video has got me thinking about/interested in hearing your stories, as directors, etc., when it comes to working with difficult talent. I've already discussed how I wish I was a much stronger director on Redemption Falls, especially with some of the talent, but I found it a problem in how to assert your so-called alpha dog status when nobody's getting paid.

Two problem actors in my 9 (!!!!) years of making films.

1. Girl seemed ok when I cast her as the LEAD in my Stephen King dollar baby. We shot the first week of the 2-week schedule with no problem. 5 days left to go. Then she got into a primadonna battle of wills with one of her co-stars. Then she got kind of bitchy on an overnight shoot where she was running around in nothing but a nightie in a park. I let it slide because she was running around in a park in a nightie! Next was a partial nude scene she agreed to before we cast her that she backed out of and we had to find a way to shoot it withouth showing anything.

Then on the last day of shooting, her boyfriend came with her. He shoots really shitty looking television commercials here and started talking shit about our camera work. Apparantly, hand held is "shitty looking and ameturish." She started playing off his attitude. This was the last day of shooting.

Then I needed her to come in to do her voice over for two scenes that were montages. The lines were directly from the Stephen King story and she called it "shitty writing" on my part (without knowing it was directly from the story). Then she refused to say the lines the way I told her to, because that was not the way she would talk in real life. She had no idea what the montage looked like or what feeling I was going for, she just knew it was not how she would talk, personally. The movie was compelted, except for this voice over and she had be handcuffed. I did the best I could with it (edited some of her dialogue together with other to make it close to what I wanted) but I still feel she fucked up my movie.

2. The next guy did everything I asked of him and did it well. However, it is hard here to find reliable people to do music scores and I am actually still looking for someone to score it, but because it was not finished and in his hands one month after filming wrapped, he lit into me about being a shitty filmmaker who doesn't finish his projects and wastes actors time.

This was because I wanted him for my next film (which required no music, and therefore is already done and sent to festivals). He told me he could not make it for the entire month of July. The lead actor I specifically wrote the movie for was leaving for LA in August, so I recast the supporting role with someone else.

He said if I was really his friend, I would have held out for him to get back. I told him this was business and that is when he ripped me about WWZJD not being finished yet. The guy has turned into a major prick and I'm afraid he is talking shit to other filmmakers, making his casting a HUGE mistake to begin with. I should have known because when I was casting him, he was talking shit about the filmmakers of a feature film he worked in before this.

Mistakes, both of them, but the signs didn't come until it was too late

To make everyone feel better, I was recently working some re-shoots for a major motion picture coming out this year. Basically some establishing and filler shots of the main character and another riding a couple of motorbikes.

We ended up running late the first day because the bikes wouldn't run and wound up losing half the 2nd day because they were being repaired. So even on large budget features shit doesn't work and bad shit happens.

And the moral to the story is make sure you have a prep day and make sure everything you need for your scenes actually works.

I'm going to be directing a 25 minute episode for a possible TV series, excitement abounds. I've never filmed another person's script before and I've met the writer and discussed changes that need to be made to the script, he seems cool with it, but still, it should be interesting.

Some friends and I, angered at the shitty movies student filmmakers were making, decided to make our own shitty movie lampooning shitty student films. This is the best scene from the movie we made. You can watch parts one and two if you want, but this poker scene is the stuff of legend. See what happens when a bunch of film students get together with a shitty camera and no script.

There's some great shots in there - a particularly nice one is when he steps in the puddle after using his reflection.

They're not criticisms, merely comments on how i'd edit using the material given to me - but your first "act" before the lead wakes up in the room again is probably at least 2 minutes too long. There's certainly plenty of the titular running - but some shots begin to feel redundant and could possibly keep the pace of the film up by just discarding them altogether. The entire project feels like it's perhaps running longer than it should, but I figure as it's a rough edit you're just putting it all out there to start with.

Also, i'm not sure if it's a post-prod filter, or the white balancing on the camera, but the blue hue tended to get more distracting for me than anything, i'd desaturate it heavily, but leave a gesture of colour, then play around with the contrast and brightness to make it look a little more filmic and a little more vivid. As is, the blue just looks like broken auto WB.

Great locations and some impressive improvising when it comes to tracking. Those things are a bitch on a budget. Always satisfying to have a project coming together - keep it up!

Got some pretty exciting news yesterday: The TV pilot of Redemption Falls will have its world premiere in June. We've been accepted as one of the selections at the Hoboken International Film Festival. As an official selection, we're eligible to compete for the Best TV Pilot award. After a long post-production process, it's nice to finally get some recognition for the film -- we'd also previously won a Silver Ace Award at the Las Vegas International Film Festival.

The validation feels great, but it's also going to be helpful as I look towards directing again, as the next one will cost a bit more and I'll be starting fundraising from the ground up. I'll be starting on very early pre-production with a small reading next month, and hopefully be shooting some test footage this summer.

Great test, mcnooj! Impressed with the fact that the footage came from the 5D. Looks fine even without timing. Did it come with that lens (I'm assuming you shot on a 50mm) or did your friend purchase it separately?

(Edit: Sorry if that sounded ignorant, I haven't ever purchased a stills camera before and was wondering if this one came packaged to deliver that kind of quality, or if your friend had to spend some extra dough on a lens.)

Yea, the Canon took some really pretty footage. It was kind of a bitch to take it into Final Cut though. The camera saves the footage in Quicktime's H264 codec, which makes working with it in a non-linear editing program really irritating. We had to convert all of our material into Apple's intermediate codec to get the video to scrub through smoothly.

Naw, not that big. Though, we considered that. Google was our friend in this case. It seemed like lots of people were having that issue. Even with pretty robust setups. But yea, they had a clunky way to circumnavigate the issue. We were thankful nonetheless.

You ever have one of those nights where even the simple act of getting a MONDAY TO FRIDAY QUICKTIME to a MOTHERFATHERCHINESEDENTIST DVD is a trial worthy of Heracles? One of those nights where you have to have it done early in the morning for someone, but each render takes forever, and each failed attempt brings you closer to deadline...?

One of those nights when all of your trusty programs; Avid, Premiere, After Effects, Encore, Final Cut, iDVD, and three dinky burning programs from the internet all fail at tasks you've accomplished A MILLION BILLION FUCKING TIMES before....

A night where there were at least half a dozen small issues, all seemingly inexplicable, and no time to properly figure any of them out (yet you know they are compounding upon one another...).

Great test, mcnooj! Impressed with the fact that the footage came from the 5D. Looks fine even without timing. Did it come with that lens (I'm assuming you shot on a 50mm) or did your friend purchase it separately?

My friend told me that he only bought the body for the Canon because he didn't want the kit lens. He said it was just some cheap zoom lens.

The lens we used to get those nice soft shots were the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II, which is a lens he already had from a previous camera.

The zoom lens was a Nikon 70-210 Ais lens. That's the one he got used online for 50 bucks. A very old and discontinued one, I'm told. Hope that helps!

Well, after a year of cold calling, networking, and working a whole bunch of unpaid gigs, I've finally landed a job at a production company. Part time to start out with, but with room to advance greatly if things work out. Huzzah!

Well, after a year of cold calling, networking, and working a whole bunch of unpaid gigs, I've finally landed a job at a production company. Part time to start out with, but with room to advance greatly if things work out. Huzzah!

Thanks for the well wishes everyone. It's for a company called Action Figure--you may remember this YouTube sensation produced by them (as a team building exercise! How awesome is that?). I'm an Office PA to start with, but the upshot is any productions that come through them (there are 2 sound stages on their property) that need set PAs, we get first grab at them. And given what was filming there this week, I'm pretty excited by that prospect.

Word of advice, I don't care what size project you are working on or how big you get, if you are the director and just walking in to meet people who are working to get your movie made, introduce yourself and thank them for being there. You never know, that might be the motivation and boost they need.

Word of advice, I don't care what size project you are working on or how big you get, if you are the director and just walking in to meet people who are working to get your movie made, introduce yourself and thank them for being there. You never know, that might be the motivation and boost they need.

Here's one for ya: I was working on one of the Lifetime movies and my partner was taking care of the mixing and meet and greets. My job was simply to do the fx and pre-mix, essentially all behind the scenes avoid the talent kinda stuff. The director of said show insisted that he meet everyone working on it. He came to the back where I was working, shot the shit for a few minutes and left. Very nice, I thought. Then he poked his head back in and says he's taking us all out for lunch.

See, so easy. There is a director who can come to NOLA anytime he wants and crew will line up to work for him for the simple fact he treated everyone so well. It wouldn't matter what the show was or how big the budget, folks would love to work with him again.

Always be good to your crew. Especially people running your sound. I was super nice to the guy running sound for The Basement--he was taking a big pay cut and working crappy hours for my movie (which required him to balance on a filing cabinet with a boom pole for nine hours for three days in a cramped room). As a result, I've got a go-to guy when I need any field work done.

And the thing is, we're really easy: keep food in our stomachs (doesn't even have to be GOOD food!) and a general sense of appreciation and we'll bend over backwards. I did a shoot a few months back that ended up going for 16 hours straight--and I did it for free! But the director rewarded us with a warm dinner, respect, and very big hugs. I don't know why more people don't get this.

Casey, I'm not trying to get you to tell tales out of school, but I am curious as to how a director known for being a taskmaster (like a Fincher, or a Cameron) can balance a desire for perfection with "being nice to the crew." Is it more of a general respect thing under extreme conditions?

I've "cast" three roles for the reading of the script I'm going to direct next. Plan on taping it. Next step is doing test footage/five minute trailer this summer to see how much it's going to cost to achieve the visual look I want to achieve. Trying to take it one step at at time, but yeah, I'm directing this.

Fincher is a sheer force of will. And yeah he is a taskmaster. But then again look at the film, Benjamin Button. It was a huge budget and prestige pic. But sure, there was a lot of the crew who at times wanted to kill him (60 plus takes of a woman's hands at the piano can drive you a little insane). But in the end, you are a part of a David Fincher film that even at the time they were talking about it being an Oscar contender. So that factors into play.

Casey, I'm not trying to get you to tell tales out of school, but I am curious as to how a director known for being a taskmaster (like a Fincher, or a Cameron) can balance a desire for perfection with "being nice to the crew." Is it more of a general respect thing under extreme conditions?

Being nice to the crew doesn't always entail being everybody's buddy. Sometimes it simply means not getting riled up at something taking so long to get set up. A lot of director's have no idea what it takes to set lights or rig explosives so they get impatient and starting getting belligerent with the crew. Be nice when asking them how long it's going to be is always appreciated.

Also, don't pull bullshit power games. One director would always point out to the rest of the crew who was taking so long "Waiting on sound!" thinking he was being funny plus trying to power play the crew into working faster. Guess what? No one found it funny because everyone knew how long it takes to do specific tasks and they all knew they were going to hear "Waiting for *your department here*" at some point.

Also, being talented is never an excuse for being an ass. I've worked with some amazingly talented but nice directors. I've also seen the crew shirts that say "T3? Not With Me!"

And, lastly, you better be damn willing to put in as much work as the rest of the crew.